back to article He's cheesed it! French flick pirate on the lam to swerve €80m fine, two-year stretch in the clink

A 41-year-old Frenchman is on the run after a court in his home country sentenced him to two years behind bars, and fined him €83.6m (£73m, $103m), for running a pirate movie website. The modern-day Pierre le Grand was found guilty this week by a Parisian judge of being in charge of streaming site Streamiz, which at one point …

  1. Mark 85

    Now that fine and jail time seems like it would be a deterrent unlike some of the penalties issued here in the States for similar crimes. It's possible he's pulling an Assange and hiding out somewhere in an embassy but I kind of doubt that as it would have made the news. So... mom and dad's basement?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This:

    "sends a very clear message: there will be no impunity for pirates,"

    Although this one has escaped the ludicrous monetary punishment and jail time. Good on him.

    There are murderers who serve less time.

    Fucking bollocks.

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: This:

      30K in socks and we can presume that that was just spare cash. It's the offshore accounts that are interesting. Would love to know just how much he actually did make..

      Is there any real reason too spend millions chasing this guy, no not really.

      Personally I don't go much to the cinema anymore because it has become a damned expensive night out.

      1. NotTrue
        FAIL

        Re: This:

        Agree totally with Khaptain, it's no wonder there are so many pirates making the money the cinema could be making if they made it more affordable and less of a rip off, we all know they need to make money but most businesses improvise to make money not make it a statutory rip off from the minute you enter the door.

        The UK crimewatch posted on twitter recently saying "streamers" were a crime ring, made me laugh so hard. So it's not the content host that's the criminal it's the poor people who stream that are criminals. Suppose that makes sense that the rich get richer and the poor get pushed further into the gutter.

      2. JoJ

        Re: This:

        Spare change to who first tripped over the evidence, you mean. .

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This:

        Maybe he put the money in his socks so he didn't put his foot in it.

      4. handleoclast

        Re: This:

        Personally I don't go much to the cinema anymore because it has become a damned expensive night out.

        It has? I wouldn't know. I tried going to the cinema a few times when I was in my late teens. Uncomfortable seats. Seats not wide enough and not enough leg room (and I'm a short-arse). People squeezing past all the time to get eats or use the toilet. Couldn't watch it at a time of my choosing. No choice of films I hadn't yet seen, just what the cinema had to offer.

        That was enough to put me off even back when it wasn't expensive. And now it's all non-smoking you wouldn't get me in a cinema if you paid me to go (unless it was an unreasonably large amount of money).

        For a far smaller sum of money I can watch in the comfort of my own home, in a comfortable seat, with food that I like on hand, with the ability to pause whenever my ageing bladder insists and not miss part of the film, with no interruptions from stupid people squeezing past, and a smoking policy that 100% matches my preferences in the matter.

        People still go to the cinema? Who knew?

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This:

        "Personally I don't go much to the cinema anymore because it has become a damned expensive night out."

        Maybe so in the UK, but not in France, where the average cost of a seat is around 6€. Even though the list price is more than double that in major theaters, most people have access to discounted or subsidized tickets.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This:

      You seem one of his users pissed off because you can no longer enjoy pirated contents - pirating is still stealing - you steal revenues - and thereby a crime.

      But people looks to become worried only when *their* contents are stolen.... just, only a relatively few people are able to produce contents worth to be stolen. Most are just mediocre ones who can only consume, and when greed, steal.

      Two years doesn't look excessive at all - many of those fines calculated on the value of the pirated contents are never paid anyway, but could be used to confiscate criminal gains.

      If you don't like to pay for contents, no one forces you, you are free to utterly ignore them, look for free ones, there are plenty of them.

      1. israel_hands

        Re: This:

        You seem one of his users pissed off because you can no longer enjoy pirated contents - pirating is still stealing - you steal revenues - and thereby a crime.

        Bollocks. Pirating isn't stealing. Copyright infringement yes, which is a civil matter, but not theft. No one's been deprived of anything (except me losing a few hours of my life for putting up with whatever shit the missus has convinced me to watch with her). You can't "steal" theoretical revenues, especially if there is absolutely zero chance of me spending money on the shit, regardless of whether I can pirate it or not.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: This:

          israel_hands,

          Ah, the good old have-your-cake-and-eat-it argument.

          That copyright material is worthless. It's shit. Nobody would pay for it.

          Right, now I'll go to the effort of downloading and watching it. I enjoyed that. But of course it was still shit, and worthless and nobody would pay for it.

          Obviously in this particular case you might be unwilling to pay. But what about the missus? If put to the choice of not pay and do without, or pay and have.

          Creating content costs money. The big budget US dramas cost about $5m per hour to produce.

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: This:

            "It's shit. Nobody would pay for it."

            Nobody would pay _that much_ for it.

            The problems are manifold.

            Firstly that the asking price is ridiculously high (The reason that cinema snacks are priced through the roof is that the distributors are only allowing them to make 25-40p per seat. For popular films there may be no markup at all allowed)

            Secondly the copyright period has been systemically and cynically extended well beyond what's reasonable.

            Thirdly that "copyright" has been creatively interpreted to cover "look and feel" (marvin gaye songs) and music passages that the original authors didn't create (bittersweet melody) whilst reducing "fair use" allowances.

            The USA profited immensely from being the world's heaviest collective intellectual property pirate up until the mid-late 20th century, but with the boot on the other foot its been going all-out to try and protect its interests worldwide in ways that in previous times would (and _did_) lead to wars being waged.

            Interestingly, the solution was proven as far back as 1980 in the computer software industry - combatting widespread software piracy was as simple as making the software so cheap that people didn't bother.

            On the other hand, some companies (eg microsoft) effectively encouraged piracy of their software by eschewing copylocks, etc until they'd achieved ubiquitousness of their proprietary formats, then once the trap was armed, started fencing users in.

          2. israel_hands

            Re: This:

            @I ain't Spartacus: I didn't say nobody would pay for it, I said I won't pay for it. And I've been hearing for about 30 years how pirating is "threatening future film production" which is obvious nonsense as pirating has risen dramatically with the advent of digital content and sharing and yet it seems like there are more TV shows and films being produced than ever. And the quality seems to be consistently on the decline as well.

            It's simple really. If they want my money all they have to do is produce stuff that's worth watching (i.e. not the same hackneyed shit with uni-dimensional plots and characters) and sell it at a price that means going to cinema with the missus isn't almost half our weekly household food bill.

            If they won't do that then I won't bother paying for it. And it's extremely rare I find the inclination to watch anything these days. Aside from the occasional TV show that's playing in the room I'm sat in and I'm paying maybe a quarter attention to, I haven't watched TV for about a decade. Last film I went to the cinema to see was Force Awakens and I only did that because my son was desperate to see it. For the time I spent sat watching that pile of lukewarm shit Lucasfilm owe me considerably more than I'd ever be able to pirate from them.

            So it's not eat my cake and have it. It's more like, eat the cake, feel slightly sick, wish I hadn't eaten it, and certainly don't want it after that.

      2. JcRabbit

        Re: This:

        @ Anonymous Coward > But people looks to become worried only when *their* contents are stolen....

        Eheh. You're getting a lot of down votes, but this is the absolute truth. Those people down voting you would be the first to throw a massive hissy fit if it was THEIR hard work getting stolen - they just don't know it yet, because nothing they ever did was fit for mass distribution, so it never got pirated.

        All they do is rationalize stealing, pretending it's not stealing at all, that nothing physical is missing so nothing was stolen - forgetting that what is *really* behind every produced good, material or not, is ENERGY. The energy required to make a physical object is exactly the same type of energy required to make an immaterial work of art. You are not paying for the object itself, you are paying for the transformation/energy spent in turning something useless into something you find useful. Without that creative energy, there would be NOTHING to steal.

        Also, it's easy to have a Robin Hood frame of mind with the work, lives and property of OTHERS - but when it comes to you... that's when the sh*t hits the fan, isn't it?: "what do you mean I'm getting paid only half my salary because a bunch of entitled strangers took the other half?! I worked hard for it! How do I pay my rent now?! How do I feed my family?!" (Yeah, you get the gist of it). :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This:

          Those people down voting you would be the first to throw a massive hissy fit if it was THEIR hard work getting stolen

          Hold on a mo', sunshine. MOST OF THE PEOPLE who worked on any film just get paid a day or piece rate. They don't keep milking it for a century. Likewise, the people who crafted 99% of your modern lifestyle, eg making toilets, or your house, or your car, they don't get paid every fucking time you use it, and again if you sell it.

          All this "stealing from women and orphans" shit that the copyright lobby keep pumping is a load of dishonest shit. The majority of people who benefit from copyright either were not the creative talent involved, or are already rich beyond most people's imaginings.

          I'm not advocating a free for all, copyright free world. But let's be clear that the current system enriches the few by the work of quite a few, and the majority of copyright "payers" earn vastly less than than beneficiaries.

      3. Xenobyte
        FAIL

        Re: This:

        You can only 'steal' revenues if you would have paid full price for something if it wasn't available for free. I seriously doubt this would happen in many of the piracy cases. Most of the pirates would have ignored the offering if it wasn't free, thus no real loss of revenues.

    3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: This:

      There are murderers who serve less time.

      It's pretty unusual to get 2 years for murder...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This:

        No, its more usual to be sentenced to 5 but released in 2.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Get your house or car broken into, the police and judicial system can't be bothered but if you are a multi-billion entertainment copyright cartel they can't bend over quickly enough.

  4. Korev Silver badge
    Pirate

    Historical?

    With the rise of legitimate and convenient video streaming sites like Netflix; has the bottom fallen out of this "market"? Is the "very clear message" a case of shutting the door after the horse has bolted?

    1. Warm Braw

      Re: Historical?

      Having had the opportunity to explore Netflix recently courtesy of a relative I was visiting, I doubt streaming services will make much of a difference.

      I was surprised how little content Netflix had, particularly in terms of back-catalogue stuff and after getting rather tired of the arms-length UI finally decided there wasn't anything I felt compelled to watch there and then. There seems to be a wider range of content on Amazon, but again there are glaring gaps and the default UI is equally hopeless (and probably bound to be so on a TV with a regular remote).

      Pirate sites appear to have a wider range of content and make it easy to find what you're looking for - which seem to give them an edge still.

      1. Tigra 07
        Pirate

        Re: Historical?

        Just like with games the pirate gets the better experience - no adverts and no extra addons running in the background sending data constantly.

        There's only so many times you can watch that stupid "You wouldn't steal a car advert"

        1. phuzz Silver badge
          Pirate

          Re: Historical?

          "Just like with games the pirate gets the better experience"

          That's true of films, but I've found with television programs that pirated shows often have really obnoxious advertising banners across the bottom of the screen at some points (I have no idea how US TV watchers put up with them). Netflix et al. don't have this, (although Amazon do insist on showing an advert before shows which is bloody annoying when you've paid already.)

          Plus, and I think I'm probably like most pirates in this, if I can watch a show legally without much messing about, then I will. Then I know the creators are hopefully getting a bit of cash, and the viewer figures will be one higher so there's slightly less chance of the show getting cancelled. Unfortunately there's a lot of stuff I watch that is unavailable if you don't live in the US, so piracy it is.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Historical?

        "Pirate sites appear to have a wider range of content and make it easy to find what you're looking for - which seem to give them an edge still."

        Yep, Kodi lets you not only choose your "skin" but even lets you choose from a selection of methods of displaying the library. My preferred is "Media 3", which gives an alphabetical lust down the left with an image and description of the selected item on the right. That's a much fast way of scanning down a list than the current fad for swipy swipy sideways scrolling of what look more like VHS video covers where the show/film title is in a different place/font/colour on each one. You'd think a professional designer with a $$billion company behind them would be able to realise that users are not all the same and don;t do or prefer the same things. Most commercial software is like this though. Little to no customisation for the users to select from. Even Windows has removed a lot of the GUI customisations, you can barely do more than choose the wallpaper nowadays.

        Choice? Yeah, we used to have that.

    2. AegisPrime
      Pirate

      Re: Historical?

      Netflix only has *some* content - it'll never have *all* the content.

      For example, were I in the US and wanted to watch say Stranger Things, The Man in the High Castle and Star Trek: Discovery I'd need separate subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime and CBS All-Access.

      This will only get worse since Disney is planning on pulling all its content (including Marvel/Lucasfilm) from Netflix in the future to host exclusively on its own forthcoming streaming service.

      The future of legitimately streaming movies and TV shows is going to be *very* expensive.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "and Star Trek: Discovery"

        They would need to pay me to watch such a mess. "The Orville" is much more Start Trek than Discovery.

      2. anothercynic Silver badge

        Re: Historical?

        It only becomes expensive if the different services don't cross-share. Some do. Having Prime + NowTV works, but yes, having to add Netflix is potentially a necessity soon. :-/

      3. Jason 24

        Re: Historical?

        "This will only get worse since Disney is planning on pulling all its content (including Marvel/Lucasfilm) from Netflix in the future to host exclusively on its own forthcoming streaming service.

        The future of legitimately streaming movies and TV shows is going to be *very* expensive."

        Well then they will be shooting themselves in the foot again.

        We've finally reached a point where it's almost possible to gain access to everything we want legitimately and at a reasonable price. If they start forcing us to pay for 15 different services they'll probably find pirating starts shooting back up again.

        Even BT and Sky have started to realise that we don't like paying multiple times for the same thing and agreed to share.

        I'd make a point about them sharing the content and then competing on service but it will just be wasted letters....

  5. BarryUK

    "A Frenchman? Running away? Gawd, you don't say"

    Have you got Nigel Farage working for you or something?

  6. Lars Silver badge

    Running in France

    A bit cryptic.

    Could it be about an army of almost 340000 who run like no army has ever run before at the first encounter with the enemy.

    To return successfully years later encouraged, and as half a part of an army of soldiers from United States, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Free France, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, and Poland.

    1. James O'Shea

      Re: Running in France

      Son... it is a simple fact that in 1940 most of the French army ran like hell.

      "The French 55th Infantry Division command post was just south of Bulson. Its divisional commander had just ordered a battalion to support the defenders of the Marfée heights and was beginning to re-establish communications with his neighbors, when down the road came 'a wave of terrified refugees'. There were gunners and infantry, officers mixed with men, some on foot, some with transport, some insisting that they had orders to withdraw and others just running for their lives. All agreed that there were German tanks at Bulson.

      This was the greatest tank victory in all the records of warfare. Several times tanks had gained a victory without firing a shot, but now they had routed an enemy without even going into action. For Guderian had not yet managed to get his tanks across the Meuse. Any tanks the panicking soldiers had seen were French tanks. It was ironic that the panic began among artillerymen--the primary anti-tank weapon--of a division that had double its normal artillery complement. And they were men of an army that had instructed them throughout their military careers that tanks had no independent value and no function but the support of infantry. The tank, like the Stuka, was more fatal to morale than to men, as neither of these weapons caused significant battlefield casualties, the tank no more than 5 per cent of them. It was the _idea_ of the tank which was so effective, and that was why the lightweight PzKw I and PzKw II tanks could prove as effective on the field as the heavier models.

      Faced with a torrent of soldiers hurrying from the fighting, a French general and his staff blocked the road with trucks to halt them. But the mob was not even slowed. Some did not stop until they reached Rheims, 60 miles away. And every man who fled had his story ready. Combining the pleasures of delivering bad news with a zeal for conversion, they told of tanks and Stukas by the thousand, and their numbers grew as the story was repeated.

      Now even the divisional commander sought permission to move his command post to the rear. Still without any proper verification, the corps commander agreed. And so it was that the 55th Infantry Division changed from an effective fighting force to a routed mob."

      -- page 227, _Blitzkrieg_, Len Dieghton, Ballentyne books.

      The unit on the 55th flank was a North African division. Algerians. They stood and fought and died for France while Frenchmen legged it. Other Frenchmen, notably De Gaulle's armored units, fought hard... but had to retreat when their flanks were exposed when the rest of the army legged it. At Arras the BEF staged a counter-atteck, lead by Matilda infantry tanks; things looked bad for the Germans until a Luftwaffe FLAK commander turned his 88mm FLAK guns on the Matildas, and the BEF had to break off.

      One of my uncles was in 4 Royal Tanks at Arras. You can bite me.

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Running in France

        @James O'Shea,

        The Brits fled and so did the French in front of a stronger army, and so did the Russians in the beginning. So get over it, time to stop that shit innuendo you never seem to be able to end.

        Being honest seems to be a bit dangerous in Britain, to refer to Nick Clegg who was honest when he wrote:

        "all nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off".

        If you are interested in "the greatest tank victory" try Russia, where the real war took place, something the Americans seem to understand a lot better than some Brits.

        Grandfather as I, or?.

        

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Running in France

          Anything that Cameron's fag said isn't worth the paper its written on. Clegg is a PURE virtue signalling instrument.

          He will jump on any bandwagon if he feels it will further his political career.

          University fees for example. Look how that turned out when his master bitch slapped him into reverse.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Running in France

            University fees for example. Look how that turned out when his master bitch slapped him into reverse."

            Both partners in a coalition have to give up on some of their promises otherwise the coalition will fail before it's even formed. Obviously the Dems, as the minor partner has to give more. But they did restrain the Tories on some of the worst excesses, especially data slurping.

            1. handleoclast

              Re: Running in France

              Obviously the Dems, as the minor partner has to give more.

              Really? I'd have said they have less to lose. They may have valued their few seats at the big boys' table more, but they had far fewer of them. I think the Tories would have folded if the Lib Dems had kept raising the stakes.

              Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Tories would have tipped over the table rather than give way. And then in the next election the Lib Dems would have gained a lot of votes for standing on their principles. As it was, they lost a lot of votes for apparently putting a few cabinet posts over principles.

              Yes, to some extent the Tories gamed the Lib Dems. Gave way over their vilest ideas in private, so the Lib Dems didn't get any credit for stopping them. And traded giving up something vile in private for getting something less vile in public, where the Lib Dems got the blame for acquiescing.

              If the Lib Dems had responded with "No fucking way, let's have a general election" either those less vile ideas would also have been dropped or we'd now have a different political landscape. As it is, it will be a long time before I again consider voting for the Lib Dems.

        2. James O'Shea

          Re: Running in France

          The Battle of Kursk was a very large battle... but it wasn't won without firing a shot, without the tanks even being present. Sedan was the greatest _victory_, not battle, because the Germans won a tank battle without using any tanks. The French ran away too bloody fast. How fast did they run? They ran so fast that they didn't blow the bridges over the Meuse. Both the RAF and the French air force were ordered to bomb the bridges at Sedan and the Albert Canal. The French didn't show up. The RAF's Advanced Air Striking Force sent in Fairey Battle light bombers. The Battle crews went in despite fighter opposition, despite heavy anti-aircraft, and took losses of 75 to 95%. The first Victoria Cross awarded to an RAF aircrew in WWII was earned, posthumously, attempting to bomb the Meuse bridges... which should have been blown up but the French ran off too bloody quickly. The Battle crews in 1940 put on a performance equal to the Devastator crews at Midway, up to 100% casualties, or the Liberator crews over Ploesti, 24% shot down, one aircraft returning with 365 bullet holes. With the caveat that if the French had just blown the damn bridges the sacrifices of the Battle crews would not have been necessary.

          The main part of the French army legged it, leaving the rest of the French army, mostly Algerians and Senegalese, and the BEF hanging with nothing on their flanks but rapidly retreating clouds of dust. The BEF and the French forces which actually wanted to fight had no choice but to fall back on the Channel. It should be noted that in between the time when the BEF and some French forces were evacuated from Dunkirk and the final French surrender, some British units, notably from the Foot Guards, went _back_ to France, only to be rolled up when the French pulled the plug. The Canadians went in in 1942; bad idea. The Western Allies went in in 1944: two British, one Canadian, two American landings in Normandy. The Poles and the French went in with the British and Canadians. You might want to read John Keegan's 'Six Armies in Normandy' or Max Hastings' 'Overlord'.

          In the meantime, the Russians were piling up massive casualties at Stalingrad, and Kursk, and many other places, but stopping the Germans and rolling them back, and back, and back, to Berlin. The Russians had 26 million dead, mostly civilians, but they broke the Germans. The last defenders of Der Furhrerbunker in Berlin in 1945 were the _French_ Waffen-SS unit, Charlemagne. At least some Frenchmen seem to have thought that they were on the wrong side in the first place, which might explain how fast they ran in 1940.

          And, oh, yeah, the biggest tank battle of all time is no longer Kursk. The battles around the Chinese Farm in the Sinai and on the Golan during the Yom Kippur War were both bigger; the greatest tank commander of all time, greater even that the Liebstandarte's Michael Whitman, was an Israeli reservist lieutenant who killed 40 tanks in three days on the Golan, despite having four tanks shot out from under him in that time. And when the North Vietnamese went south in 1975 they went south behind more tanks than the Germans committed to the invasion of the Soviet Union.

          There is a significant difference between tank _battle_ and tank _victory_.

          1. Gustavo Fring
            Facepalm

            Re: Running in France

            You have just proved Nick Clegg 110% right ........

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Running in France

        Every army fled at first since the Germans were so much better organised, coordinated and armed than anyone on their path to France. The last (and main) battle was that of Dunkirk, where the weaker armies (French and Belgian mainly) stood (heroically) ground for a few days, to give time for the Brits and others to retreat (no fleeing for the Brits right? retreating!).

        That Hitler didn't bomb the hell out of the channel, and gave Britain *years* to build a force that could fight back are not factors that the UK will ever acknowledge as helping their "heroic" resistance.

        The continentals didn't get this respite and were crushed by the sheer superiority of the Germans (helped in no small way by the naivety of Chaberlain and Daladier a few years earlier).

      3. Hans 1
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Running in France

        @James O'Shea

        Were the British forces in Dunkirk already by then ? How conveniently you forget the British runners ... Oh, and before you claim "At least me made it to Dunkirk before the Nazis" I am sorry to have to inform you that the Nazis let you reach Dunkirk, mostly unharmed, Führerbefehl.

        I'm loving it ... and next time you take the Mickey out of the French, remember 1066, a total defeat.

        Note, I am a Brit (have the Queen's passport somewhere), consider myself stateless ... for states, flags, anthems are, imho, for the simple-minded, YMMV.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Running in France

          "I'm loving it ... and next time you take the Mickey out of the French, remember 1066, a total defeat."

          Weren't the Normans, ie Northmen, Vikings who had settled in France and took that part over?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Running in France

      Could it be about an army of almost 340000 who run like no army has ever run before at the first encounter with the enemy.

      Come now Lars. Who were your countrymen? What part did they play in the overthrow of tyranny?

      Did they put up a token defence and get occupied? Did they haul up the white flag of neutrality?

    3. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Running in France

      Returning to my first comment, it was about this subtitle.

      "A Frenchman? Running away? Gawd, you don't say"

      It is a stupid innuendo. Stupidity is, as we know, not a sin, but not to speak up is a sin.

      So what makes some Brits so fond of this stupidity.

      But on a lighter tone,

      As far as I remember Britain had some nice property in France, but ran away. The French in the English language did not run away. The only French running I can spot is that France has run ahead of Britain as an economic power.

      Perhaps we should try to find some logic behind this then.

      Lets try modern Trumpism, the good guy called his competition names like “liar ” and “crooked” and it's a known fact that those words come easy when one is one oneself.

      Perhaps the explanation to this “running in France” is indeed very similar.

      Then we could also try the modern MAGA, the simplest form, the Trump method, is to try to make everybody else a bit smaller in order to feel bigger.

      All countries have created their own “neighbour” stupidities, the English with the additional advantage of having such a large number of neighbours both at home and around the world.

      Perhaps even world leading in this too.

      I become well educated as a kid too, one of my favourites, one I would newer repeat is - “A Russian is a Russian even if you fry him in butter”. I am a bit reluctant to claim it's originally Finnish as Russia has many neighbours and it could also have been copied from some similar surrounding with an expansive big neighbour.

      Anyway my original comment was really about “save the children”, stop the stupidity.

      Should you find great solace in stupid innuendo try to keep it to yourself.

      PS. I almost forgot to mention the high horses.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "French flick pirate [...]"

    I was expecting something about a rogue gendarme.

  8. Alister

    the district of Montrouge, south of Paris.

    Isn't Red Mountain a brand of coffee?

    Not from there though, apparently.

    1. James O'Shea

      Re: the district of Montrouge, south of Paris.

      That would be Blue Mountain. And its very expensive.

    2. Paul Westerman
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: the district of Montrouge, south of Paris.

      ♬ "Move up to the bigger taste!" ♬

  9. Cuddles

    Not helping themselves

    "some that had left cinemas but had yet to be sold as DVDs."

    The big problem with the entertainment industry is that they just don't seem to have any interested in actually meeting consumer demand, and just continue doing the same old things regardless of whether it's what anyone actually wants. Back in the day, if you wanted to listen a song, it was either hope it turned up at some point on the radio, or buy a horrifically overpriced album full of utter shit that you didn't care about. Then the internet came along, and horrifically overpriced albums full of shit remained the only way to purchase a specific song because the music industry just didn't give a shit. Then we got Napster and everyone was suddenly able to actually listen to the things they wanted, when they wanted, without any extraneous nonsense of excessive costs. That forced the indsutry's hand, and now Amazon, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and various others all offer consumers the chance to listen to and/or purchase exactly what they want, when they want.

    And now here we are again with the film industry. People want to be able to watch the film they want, when they want, and aside from a few wankers are willing to pay a reasonable amount for the chance to do so. So the film industry tell everyone to fuck off, it's out of the cinemas and you can't watch it at all, maybe it will be available somewhere at some point in the future. And completely unsurprisingly, people just turn to the modern-day Napsters that actually fulfil the market's demands.

    You don't even need to argue about whether infringing copyright is right or wrong or equivalent to theft or anything like that. Pretty much no-one torrents music any more, because there are plenty of legal ways to access it just as quickly and easily, and in many cases just as cheaply. The only reason we're still arguing the same question for films is because the entertainment industry still goes out of its way to avoid satisfying market demand. The only reason people argue for illegal downloading is because the films in question often aren't available any other way; put them on Netflix and DVD as soon as the cinema run is over, and the vast majority of people will just watch them that way, regardless of their expressed views on copyright law.

    1. Ramlen

      Re: Not helping themselves

      The only reason I download movies is so I can have a digital copy of a DVD I already own so I can watch it from various devices around the house should I wish to.

      Yes I still keep all of my DVDs too as SWMBO likes to be able to just "put a DVD on" as opposed to pressing a few buttons on the remote.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Not helping themselves

      "The big problem with the entertainment industry is that they just don't seem to have any interested in actually meeting consumer demand, and just continue doing the same old things regardless of whether it's what anyone actually wants. "

      Kind of like the airplane manufacturing industry right up until about the 1980s.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not helping themselves

        It's called entitlement. They think the world owes them.

  10. RedCardinal

    Running away? Certainly sir

    >>A Frenchman? Running away? Gawd, you don't say

    Does Dunkirk ring any bells with you. Been a popular film about it recently - you know the Brits running away and abandoning their French ally. :P

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